


Word-bound

by Semyaza



Category: Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-28 15:19:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/309261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Semyaza/pseuds/Semyaza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bilbo engages in linguistic field-work</p>
            </blockquote>





	Word-bound

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for a genre challenge. My genre was 'Mannerpunk' (a bit of a stretch, I admit) and my prompts were 'supercilious, slumgullion, glasses, flask, baffle.' The last is implicit, or possibly invisible. I've used 'supercilious' in the, according to the OED, rare and obsolete sense of 'pertaining to the eyebrows' or 'having great eyebrows.'
> 
> The Gaffer's words are self-explanatory. If they're not it doesn't matter. Bilbo doesn't understand them either. 'Mouldywarp' means 'mole'. 'Screws' = rheumatism. 'Hookey Walker' is a 19th century expression often shortened to 'Walker'. It implies disbelief. And Bilbo's doggerel is canon.

"Spillikins," repeated the Gaffer, taking a pull on his long-stemmed briar. The wind that blew off the moors in April had found its way across the low spot in the privet hedge and put his stiff neck in a pudder. He raised the collar of his oilcloth coat against the draft just as the red underdrawers on the Widow Rumble's washing line – plainly visible from where he stood by the dry-stone wall – snapped to attention. He watched them flask and flutter in the brisk nor'wester, the legs puffed-up like sausage rolls, and wondered if the clear skies would hold till the old lad had done prittle-prattling.

"A child's game, otherwise known as 'jerk-straws'," replied Bilbo and turned a page in the parchment book on his portable writing desk. They had been making plans for the kitchen garden until Gaffer Gamgee, who was inordinately fond of oaths, had uttered one at mention of mustard greens in the cabbage row and Bilbo had gone indoors to fetch his _Shire Glossary_. While he was alone with the stack of tracing paper, the coloured pencils, and the set square, the Gaffer had taken the last strands of pipeweed from his pouch with accustomed resignation and waited for the onslaught of questions. What a great to-do a fellow could make over a word. Here they were, ten minutes on and no further for'ard. "How did it come to be an expletive?"

"Our eldest -- him as went to Tighfield three years agone -- " The Gaffer squinted at the churned mud near the side gate as if he had forgotten the name of his first-born. He would build a cucumber frame with the window from Farmer Cotton's derelict pig barn. The drift of Buckland Old Spots had proven unmanageable and Tom's liking for pork souse had diminished accordingly. _There_ , by the south --

"Hamson?" said Bilbo, jotting a few words on his seed purchase order.

"Aye, that's him. The lad didn't know a hoe from a hay-fork but he was fond of larkin' about wi' trifles and gewgaws. Nan Roper give him a set of bone sticks at Yule and one High Day, me being the worse for wear, if you follow –" The Gaffer sucked on his pipe and stared down the lane at what might have been a clump of yellow primroses by the wayside. He had come to Bag End at daybreak along the field path and missed the new blooms.

" -- I stumbled on our Sam's hobby-horse and stepped into the midst of a spillikin game. A hook went through my big toe, I yelled fit to bust, and Halfred, the cheeky beggar, said _Da's pickled_. _'Spillikins'_ I said, meaning the pile o' sticks, but since then –"

"Never mind," interjected Bilbo. "I'll place a notation above 'sticklebats.' 'Spillikins: a regional variant of 'bollocks'.' Would you care for a glass of the Widow's burdock wine? It's done wonders for my intestinal fortitude."

The Master had more bottle than Bullroarer Took, which was twice what a fellow who kept his nose out of other peoples' business needed but the Gaffer was not averse to a tipple at mid-day.

"I won't say no," he rejoined, as Bilbo closed the _Shire Glossary_ and wiped the pen on the edge of his shirt-cuff. "It's a sight tastier than the piss-a-bed catlap at _The Ivy Bush_."

"I dare to swear it is," said Bilbo, his hand resting indecisively on the book. "'Catlap'?"

"Ill thought of from here to Oatbarton," said the Gaffer, and resumed pulling sowthistles from the border in the hope that he would be left to mind his own business for a quarter hour while Bilbo pottered in the cellar. This year's kitchen garden was the same to all intents and purposes as last year's kitchen garden and the spitting image, as far as anyone knew, of every kitchen garden at Bag End during Hamfast Gamgee's watch and Holman Greenhand's before him. Coloured pencils, indeed. Fiddle-faddle.

"I meant -- " The Master straightened his weskit and seemed to reconsider the question. "Burdock it is, then. What extraordinary underdrawers."

Gaffer Gamgee stifled a laugh unsuited to the ears of a gentlehobbit who had no truck with lasses, or so it was rumoured.

"Off ye go, sir. I'll see to it the wind don't blow yer things to Bywater Pond."

A hobbit of outstanding youthfulness could spend fifty years scribbling fit to bust when a gardener of a mere three score suffered a trick knee and the screws on his account. 'Twasn't fair, he supposed, though he would rather a wife and six bairns in a snug hole than a parcel of queer friends and no one to sup with him. If the weather held and Master Bilbo forgot his questions under the influence of the Widow's best there might yet be time for the spinage. On t'other hand, that flaxen-haired moon-calf was old enough to sow a packet of seed even with two left thumbs and his head in the clouds.

The Gaffer gripped a capstone to steady his pins and looked out across the grassy common flecked with speedwell at the drowsy hump of Number 3. There had been plans once to put a high fence round the land between here and the Row but before the deed could be drawn up by Grubb, Grubb and Burrowes on behalf of Otho Sackville-Baggins, the chests and bags of gold – and the Master as well – had come in at the gate to rout the interlopers. Lobelia went home with a flea in her ear and there was no more talk of entitlements, except at the _Ivy Bush_ where gossip raged over the dire consequence of Bilbo’s having no heir by will to protect the villagers’ rights of pasture. It was a sad state of affairs.

“Incomers,” he said, and wished them gone to Sackville though he had no idea where it was or why anyone would live so far from Hobbiton. If he gave a shout would that young ninnyhammer stop worriting himself with his horn book and do a proper job of work in the garden?

“Halloa!” he began as May emerged from the wash-house, her apron gleaming white as curds and her cap-strings untied. She dropped the laundry basket on the slate flags and began to peg out the bed-linens as if they had done her an injury. _Jab jab jab_. The Gaffer pursed his lips. “That lass has too much starch for a gardener’s daughter.”

“I fear –“ There was a chink of glasses and a muffled curse that rightly belonged after ‘shenanigans’ if an unlettered hobbit knew his alphabet. “Would you mind --?”

The stoneware wine flask tottered at the edge of a tray stacked with seed cake, currant buns, and creamery butter while a quarter bound notebook that was wedged inside the pea green weskit showed every sign of toppling to the ground. The Gaffer tucked the flask into his poacher’s pocket and gave the book a nudge.

“Thank you,” said Bilbo and rebalanced the load. “I fear she does but it’s not without precedent in the family. Shall we sit in the summerhouse? I have a question –“

O’ course you do, thought the Gaffer, and my lad’s caught the sickness. _What was the Fell Winter, Da? Who brung pipeweed to the Westfarthing? Da, can I have a pen-knife? Where’s Buckland?_

“Ay, I dare say.” He set the pail of thistles by the compost-heap and took a final glance at the rutted lane that wound from Overhill to the East Road. The ditches were thick with cocksfoot and staunchweed but if the primroses had been other than a figment he could no longer find them. Pale as bearded barley they had seemed to his distracted eye. “Out wi’ it then.”

“When you were planting the onions last Tuesday – “ began Bilbo, flicking his handkerchief across the stone bench before settling his coat-tails next to the currant buns, “I heard you – or, rather, I might have heard if I’d listened at the window – “ He faltered. “Did you shout ‘cow slavver’ as you dropped the what’s-its-name?”

“Dibber,” replied the Gaffer, uneasily aware that his words were not his own at Bag End. He fished out the wine flask and put it on the table that Halfred Greenhand had made for Belladonna Took in ought six. Some said it looked more like an upsy down chamber pot than a wood blewit but any fellow who did so was liable to have his ears boxed. “Mebbe I did.”

“I hope so. Why, only this morning, I was observing to – well, we’ll come to that momentarily – how very few ‘C’ words were included in the _Shire Glossary_ and yet I’ve been able to add ‘catlap’ and ‘cow slavver’ and –“ Bilbo selected a square of seed cake. “Do sit down and have a bun. They were baked at the Hall for -- What was I saying?”

The Gaffer lowered his bones to the seat opposite and sighed into his muffler. A story had got about in the village that Smaug the Mighty was killed, not by a well-shot arrow over Lake-town, but by the recitation of Master Bilbo’s long-father tree beginning with a spurious descent from Marcho and Blanco. No one then or since had denied that a Baggins could talk the legs off an iron pot. It was established fact.

“Catlap and cow slavver?” he offered. The buns had a stippling of sugared walnuts and were of a strange aspect hitherto unknown to the Gaffer. Doubtless the Brandybucks thought highly of them but it was a long way to go for a sticky bun when better could be had in Hobbiton at two a penny.

“Ah, yes,” said Bilbo as he unstoppered the wine. “And yesterday, if I’m not mistaken, you called your apprentice a ‘cod’s-head’. Tow, not cod, surely.”

“He’ll come to a bad end,” answered Gaffer Gamgee, the corner of his mouth lifting in acknowledgement of the implied witticism. “The lad wants tempering.”

“I have just the thing.” Bilbo opened his notebook and drew a line below the last entry. “ _Catlap, cod’s-head, cow slavver._ You may supply the definitions once we’ve finished the wine. Gracious me, it’s cold as a snowball in here. _The wind so whirled a weathercock, he could not hold his tail up; the frost --_ Ta-tum ta-tum ta-tum.”

“Tripes and trillibubs,” muttered the Gaffer, willing to supply the definitions directly if only the master would fill his cup.

“I’d forgotten your love of alliteration,” said Bilbo. “I could append a short – “

"Or 'trolly-bags'," added a quiet voice from the entrance, “though I’m glad to say that it’s uncommon west of the Brandywine. ‘Baggins’ is a fertile source of merriment for the half-witted. _The frost so nipped a throstlecock, he could not snap a snail up._ Will that do?”

The milk-and-water youth who leaned against the door-case arched a slender brow at his listeners and nodded towards the Gaffer.

“You’ve dropped your bun,” he said. The sunlight fell across his blue sprigged weskit and picked out the double row of gilt buttons, the elaborate watch chain, and the pair of eyeglasses in his breast pocket. His lawn sleeves glimmered. “Shall I get you another?”

“My nephew,” said Bilbo, waving his quill at the apparition. “That is -- my second cousin once removed on the Baggins side. He’s also -- Well! I’m afraid that Lobelia is in for a nasty shock, bless her. Frodo, this is Master Hamfast, without whom the garden would be at sixes and sevens.”

“How d’ye do,” said Frodo. He sank onto the bench in a pose reminiscent of a peony after rain. “You’ll be delighted to hear that I don’t share the Brandybuck weakness for anagrams. ‘Barfing Goods’ was a recurring assault on my sensibilities, as you may imagine. Alliteration, on the other hand – “

“Sir?” The Gaffer felt powerless to retrieve his bun when the incomer’s gaze, which had a steadfastness of purpose at odds with the cut of his breeches, was fixed on the notebook like a cockatrice’s on a mouldywarp. Bilbo gave his cousin a pencil and put up his feet.

“ _Cow slavver_ ,” he said, and pointed to the list. “I told Basso forty years ago that his research was flawed. Why, the fellow never left his own fireside in Whitfurrows! This calls for a revised edition, wouldn’t you agree?”

The second-cousin-once-removed-on-the-Baggins-side slipped on the silver-framed spectacles and peered at the parchment. His eyebrows, which were dark and supple as measuring worms, rose and sank till the Gaffer was forced to steady his innards with a sippet of burdock wine.

The master was pleased as punch about something and it wasn’t just the glib tongue of his well-dressed nephew, the sly-boots. They had their heads bent over the page like two lads threading a conker.

 _Close as two peas, I’ll be bound_ , thought the Gaffer. _And don’t you go rummaging around in my wordhoard neither, Mr Frodo Baggins._

“Radisshes and spinage,” he said in a low tone, though he didn’t approve of leafy greens from the east. “And a cucumber frame afore week’s end. I’ll rouse the ninnyhammer at fourses – “

He had half risen to his feet when a hand touched his elbow and a pair of velvet-clad legs insinuated themselves into his field of vision.

“I beg your pardon, Master Hamfast” said the newcomer, his face a picture of distress. “Cousin Bilbo waylaid me before I had a chance to explain the difference between anagrams and alliteration. “You see, ‘Frodo Baggins’ can be anagrammatized to ‘Barfing Goods’; that is, a hobbit with nothing to do might shift the letters of my name about in an idle moment. And there are – not to put too fine a point on it – many idle moments at Brandy Hall. Have a fresh bun while you tell us the meaning of ‘catlap’.”

The Gaffer found it hard to straighten his knees after a sit-down and was loath to try it again for anything short of a warm pint. The buns looked no more toothsome to his eye than they had five minutes ago which was scarce to be wondered at if they had arrived on the waggon with young clever clogs. No doubt they’d been sat upon.

“Thankee, sir, but if Mr Bilbo’s done wi’ his plans and his pencils I’ll be off to my work. Some folk have it.”

“Indeed,” said Frodo, drawing out a crumpled handkerchief from his sleeve. “What I know about my cousin’s pencils could be written on a postage stamp; however, I’ve a suggestion or two on the subject of garden features.“

The Gaffer would have raised an eyebrow had he possessed the ability. Instead, he stared at the pert stripling and sucked his gums.

“Oh, aye?”

“Aye.” Frodo dabbed at a smudge on his glasses. “A bower seat on that patch of waste ground by the side entrance, for example, or an arch of purple clematis above the door. _Smallburrows’ Willow Works_ in Frogmorton has a large selection of –“

"Slumgullion!" said a small, hoarse someone near the shrubbery. "Ah’ve never heard nowt like it."

“No,” said Frodo, turning to examine the border of roses and lavender, “not ‘slumgullion’, which, as I understand it, is a thin beef stew popular in the Marish. Arbours, rustic benches, and willow hurdles. And your name is --?”

“Mud,” exclaimed the Gaffer, and reached an arm over the thicket of Crested Jewel. “Numbskull, lackwit, bufflehead, gooby –“

“Hold up!” said Bilbo, who had brought his notebook and pencil from the summer house and was scribbling at a great rate. “Could you begin again? I’ve lost track. _Numbskull, lackwit --_

“Samwise,” added the unseen voice, as the Gaffer pulled it willy-nilly onto the gravel path to stand shamefacedly, a chain of yellow primroses on its unkempt curls. “Have they bower seats at Brandy Hall? I heerd tell –“

“They have several,” replied Frodo, casting a steely glance at the Gaffer who retained a firm grip on his wayward offshoot’s ragged smock. “Shall I describe them?”

“Hookey Walker!” said young Sam, and scuffed a dirty toe across the pebble path. He was evidently torn between innate caution and the desire to enrich his storehouse of bits and bobs.

“Not at all.” Frodo pocketed his spectacles and regarded the Gaffer’s prisoner for a long minute. “Whatever made you think so? And why were you frisking in the perennial border when you could have been eating sticky buns and cake with me in the kitchen?”

“’Cos I –“

“‘Cos he’s an idle muff,” interrupted the Gaffer. “Nosing about where’s he not needed, picking –“

“ _Muff_ ,” said Bilbo, his pencil going nineteen to the dozen. “Follows ‘mud’.”

“I dare say a bottle of ginger beer might be found or even a pot of tea,” continued Frodo. “I’ll show you my sketchbook of _Buckland Byroads_ and then, if you fancy, we’ll play a rubber at backgammon. Come along!”

“Backgammon?” asked Sam, hopping from foot to foot. His primrose crown had slipped over one ear. “Do they keep oliphaunts in Buckland? Halfred says –“

The Gaffer stopped his ears and waited until the ill-matched pair had vanished into the smial.

“That’s torn it,” he said at last.

“By no means,” answered Bilbo, proffering his wallet of Longbottom Leaf. “ _The lad wants tempering_ were your very words. They’ll wear each other down before Yuletide. Now, if you’d be so kind as to explain ‘gooby’ –“


End file.
